


What It Takes To Heal

by mellichor (ghostofcepheus)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medical, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-17 18:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4677557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostofcepheus/pseuds/mellichor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I know they look withered and most people throw them away when they’re all wilted, but,” Tsukishima holds up a frame of the dried flowers in front of Kuroo, “there’s still beauty inside, don’t you think? Even when everyone thinks they are done for, there's still some hope left.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. blonde hair & a stretcher

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Flowers die, and boys cry. Sometimes it takes more than a band-aid to finally heal.
> 
> Rating: T for language and mental illness
> 
> Pairing: Kuroo Tetsurou & Tsukishima Kei; slight!kenhina & bokuaka

 

Patients die. During his first semester of working as an emergency room intern, Kuroo’s very first patient dies on him when he is measuring her heartbeat with a stethoscope. He feels her pulse one second, and the next second it is gone and never to return.

He thought he was overall prepared for it to happen. After all, Kuroo has seen countless pictures of dead bodies in his classes, he has memorized all the text about what happens to a body at different time intervals after the death, and he knew what he was getting into by sending his resume in for this internship.

But he wasn’t prepared. He wasn’t prepared at all.   He didn't know that when he would try to fall asleep at night, all he would be able to see was green eyes and think about stories about the patient’s recently born granddaughter. Reminiscences of soft greens and green tea lotion, and Kuroo feels the happy stomach flop when the old lady laid a hand on his cheek and said how much he looks like her son who passed away. He can’t sleep and instead thinks about the stories the old lady would tell him about her garden with petunias and blue bells and her home before it was bombed. He hears her soft, chirpy voice as she recounts how she had to escape into the neighboring country during the war before raising enough money by selling olives and moves from her country with nothing on her back to start all over again, and it isn’t until he feels tears dripping onto his pillow that he realizes she never got to see her homeland again or find her siblings.

After that, he isn’t able to hold conversations with soft green-eyed people, and he doesn't look into the eyes of any patients he takes care of. Instead, Kuroo memorizes his patients’ lips, noses, moles, blemishes--all tiny details that make it hard to remember but doesn’t keep him up at night if one of them dies. When he gets the hang of distinguishing patients’ eyeless faces, he pays attention to how one’s lip trembles or hesitates before speaking. Tiny, mechanical robot parts that somehow Kuroo figures out how to piece together to make the big picture. It makes it easier on him; less emotions get in the way of his job, less eyes burning like teapots set to a slow boil in his head when he needs to sleep, and he's able to work more efficiently.

So when Kuroo Tetsurou gets the file with the name Tsukishima Kei, he avoids looking into his eyes and focuses on his other traits. He is pale -- like how nauseously soft and ghostly pale blonde his hair is--, and his skin stuck to his bones like wet paper and is a stark contrast to how dark and tanned Kuroo is.  In the mix of sterile white, Kuroo remembers him as soft winter sunlight, pale yellow and slow to rise.

He sits stone-still in Mickey Mouse-printed hospital dresses, impervious and immune to the other nurses bustling around him.  He doesn’t respond when they set his food in front of him; he doesn’t respond when they turned on the TV and left. The the scenery soon shifts to a still winter morning in the countryside, and Kuroo memorizes Tsukishima by the desolation and hopelessness that seeps through his skin.

Kuroo leaves to collect a file from the pharmacology department. When he comes back, he opens the door quietly and freezes when he sees the blonde patient with his palms pressed against the curve of his forehead.

He grits his teeth, his forehead furrowed as if it were to explode if another crease was added to his forehead, and he shakes violently, covering his face from the world in front of him. Whereas he seemed to be a blank canvas initially, splotches of a crying blue and dashes of dull reds would slosh all over the white paper. Tsukishima shakes like the trees in a summer storm, brimming with self-loathing red-orange and hollow swirls of black, and Kuroo doesn’t know how to memorize him now.

_"How the hell am I going to pay for the bill, what am I going to do,"_ he moans softly and mumbling, gritting his teeth. He squeezes his hands over his face tighter and tighter, panicked, rapid breathing and sobs that tore through his body. _"How am I going to make up all this schoolwork? I want everything to stop, just stop. . ."_ He draws out the last syllable with a breathy whisper before rocking himself; his weak voice cracks into another cry that was bitten down, his hands travelling up to his hair, fingers grasping the blonde roots as he pulls and pulls.

Kuroo stands, and for the first time ever, he doesn’t know what to do. He racks his brain for anything he may have read in his textbooks, but nothing clicks. He’s an invader that intruded into the space of someone’s inner soul, and now he witnesses and memorizes the colors of someone’s demons.

All Kuroo can decide to do is to walk silently to the windows and open the blinds, hoping a tiny bit of starlight and city wonder can meet the patient’s anguished eyes. He quietly steps to Tsukishima’s table and places a neatly trimmed flower upon it, and leaves without a word.

Kuroo waits outside of the room and watches through the window. When Tsukishima finally lifts his head to see a sunshine-yellow peony sitting on his counter, Kuroo sees his eyes are the color of an autumn’s honey brown.

* * *

Kuroo blinks blearily at his medical pager and weakly rubs his eyes. He faintly wonders to himself if this shift would ever end.

'Three more hours...' He grits his teeth in frustration. He spent all of last night cramming to complete that ridiculous English paper on a book he had only half read (which was really his own fault for letting Bokuto persuade him to procrastinate and watch all 9 seasons of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ in one week when he should have been reading) and called Kenma up late, desperate for him to tell the ending. Really, he knew he shouldn't have signed up for this work shift.

The lack of sleep left him exceptionally cranky and nearing the crash and consequences of having five cups of coffee.

Kuroo is a studious honor pre-med student at his university, and he really did enjoy his part-time job at the hospital. Despite the difficult patients that believed nurses were convenient slaves that had all the time in the beautiful world to bend to their every wish and command (one had the audacity to ask if he could pluck her leg hairs-- how in the world should someone respond?), he really did enjoy his work and connecting with the patients. It was interactive and required hard work, and there was always something different everyday that gave Kuroo an eyesight in almost every major medical field out there while getting some money to save up for medical school.  So really, despite his current complaints about the job, he couldn’t be happier with it.

As he passes endless white corridors and muttering doctors, he brushes his hair with his fingers in a half-assed attempt to make it look less messy and rolls up the sleeves of his scrubs.

“Um. . .mister?” Kuroo looks up and blinks at tiny child in front of him. The fair-skinned girl had short blonde hair tied up in a pigtail with the nerdiest Steven Universe hairband. She seemed distressed if her nervous hand-fiddling was anything to go by.

“Are you lost?”

“Where is room 172?”

The girl brightened after Kuroo gave her directions and she skipped away, shaking her head in response to Kuroo’s offer to take her there.

Kuroo watched after her as she carelessly skipped away, swinging a soft orange lunchbox.

Cute kid.

* * *

As Kuroo was making his rounds, he was surprised to see the girl from earlier in the blonde-haired boy’s room. For the first time since he first came in, the windows were open and were filtering in pleasant, bubbly sunlight that danced across the white-tiled floors and onto the tips of his nose, eyelashes, and hair.

As Kuroo found out, the blonde girl’s name was Yachi, and she is an energetic fifth grader that made Kuroo want to sit down and never get up with her restless movements. Whether she was shadowing Kuroo and bombarding him with questions as he checked Tsukishima’s blood pressure, hopping recklessly on the doctor’s stool to tape crayon-colored pictures on the wall, or leaping haphazardly as she dramatically reenacts what happened today at school, the spunky ball of sunshine had too much sunshine and spunk for Kuroo to handle on four hours of sleep and double the cups of coffee.

Yachi reminded Kuroo of a butterfly that was new to the world yet relentlessly determined to flutter her wings and kiss happiness here and there. Crayon drawings that were colored way past the lines of generic flowers, illustrations of her school, and what he assumes to be the child herself and Tsukishima littered the walls of the room.

“Yachi. . .” Kuroo holds in his breath, surprised at hearing the boy’s actual voice for the first time. It was unexpectedly raspy, yet it chimed gently with adoration and near-silent, fondly amused chuckles.

“C’mere doofus, you have tape all over your fingers and arms.”

“Wait, I’m almoooooooost -- ” Yachi draws out her breath as she sticks  her last picture to the wall by the sink. “There! I’m done, Kei!”

She bounces over to Tsukishima’s gesturing, IV-cluttered arms and plops onto the bed with him.  She puffs out her chest, looking around the room seeming to be incredibly proud of herself.

“See, see? Since I can’t apparently move in with you,” she makes a sulky face before brightening, “I made all of these so you will never feel alone! You’re gonna get better in no time.”

Tsukishima holds her, ruffling her head gently and again laughing that tinkling laugh that seemed to dance alongside with the sunset’s rays.

“I’m not sure if they’ll let me keep those, but let me see if I can pull some strings.” Yachi claps her hands merrily, delighted at the mischievous glint in her older brother’s eyes

Kuroo would make an exception, he decides as he silently closes the door behind him. Tsukishima Kei needed as many drops of sunlight as he could possibly get.

* * *

 

They attend the same university.

When Tsukishima was first received at the hospital, Kuroo was in charge of filing in his visit into the medical history on the computer databases. He had chronic pain syndrome, experienced inflammatory bowel disease, had labeled a minor case of anorexia a few years back, and to top it all off, was diagnosed with depression. Doctors constantly looked at Tsukishima and saw the medications he took and the illnesses and conditions he had. They didn't see a person, they saw labels that were forced upon him; it was as if all of the things this poor college kid couldn’t help to change were words that describe him and made him into who he is.

Kuroo doesn’t agree with them. He doesn’t think Kei’s mental illness described him one bit.

Instead, Kuroo sees a dimmed, mellow voice and a twinkling laugh like a flickering flame desperate to burn brighter. Whenever he would come in to prepare Tsukishima’s medicine, he would see him in his wheelchair gazing out his window onto the sunset-tangerine sky, serving as a backdrop for the peach puffs of clouds sailing by. On other days, he would instead find him in his bed, tired eyes examining the wilting flowers in his hands. When days would pass by after Yachi would visit and bring flowers, the petals that began to fall would be in his hands, softly rubbing their fragrance into his skin.

“Would you like me to throw that away for you?”

Tsukishima would look up, and softly respond. “No thank you, I plan on keeping them.”

Every time.

 

Kuroo decides not to ask why.

The next morning, Kuroo drags his feet as he goes to his class, and he has to rub his eyes twice when he looks up and sees wide golden eyes staring at him.

"Kenma? I thought you were skipping today?"

“Nah, I finished Persona 4 last night so I decided to come today. Can I ask you a favor?”

Kuroo rubs his neck. "As long as it's not something that will make me lose more sleep or get me busted, shoot."

“You still work at the hospital right? Do you know any workers who see Tsukishima Kei?”

“I actually see him during one of my evening shifts. How do you know him?”

Kenma stares at the lanky student in front of him. “You’ve got to be kidding me, he sits two rows behind you in our literature class. And,” he pauses, glancing to the side for a split second. Kuroo wasn’t sure if he saw a glimpse of red on Kenma’s cheeks or if he was just hallucinating, “and it’s his roommate that I started dating. The guy I told you about.”

Kuroo immediately begins blushing from shame and scratched the back of his neck.

_Well shit, I feel like an asshole._ To be fair, Kuroo was never very observant. It took him ten minutes the other morning to realize he forgot to flip his eggs and the mistake caused Bokuto’s and his own breakfast to be charred black. Hell, Bokuto was probably right in saying how one of these days Kuroo was going to be followed home and murdered (it might just be Bokuto if he kept burning their breakfast).

Kenma pulls a folder out from his messenger bag. “Anyways, do you mind giving this to him? It’s all of the notes and assignments he missed.” Kuroo nods, mind still achingly tired, guilty, and numb.

“Yeah, sure.”

* * *

 

It takes some effort to break Tsukishima out of his shell, but as the days passed on, Kuroo finds that Tsukishima Kei is a very good listener. Kuroo doesn’t know what started the conversations -- maybe it was the fact that they both passionately despise their literature teacher with the continuous busywork she pulls out of her ass or if it was Kuroo being the passer of notes and how he began giving Kei his notes instead of Kenma’s, but the dark-haired pre-med student finds himself enjoying talking to Tsukishima. From mindlessly humming a tune to eventually chattering to him about his day, what he ate, and ‘damn, I wish Kenma didn’t always take the last few goddamn Sour Patch Kids’, the glasses-wearing college student would always sit silently and listen intently when Kuroo spoke. He never says much when Kuroo is rambling, and Kei seem content listening, bobbing his head every now and then.

What makes Kuroo love their conversations was when Kei talks.

Not only is Kei’s voice dulcet and gentle like hearing church bells on a windy, slow day, but he always offers a different perspective to everything they talked about. Kuroo admires how uniquely the blonde patient thought; he was quiet but quick on his toes with his words and quips. Tsukishima Kei has passions and dreams and oddness and intensity of different colors all packed into one lanky, tall, pale kid, and Kuroo Tetsurou couldn’t help but admire him.

Kuroo finds himself stopping by his room even after his shift is over and he is free. He finds himself stopping by even before his shift starts, just to say hello or goodnight, to ask about his day, to ask about whether Yachi was stopping by today, or to ask if he needs any help with understanding Kuroo’s scratchy handwriting. As days went by, Kuroo finds himself just wanting to wish Tsukishima a good night’s sleep and see his small curve of a smile before he gets off his shift.

He gets into the habit of whistling on his way to his car, and he sings along with the radio in a more off-key, audacious way than usual. He feels his cheekbones ache, because holy smokes, Kei’s smile leaves an imprint on his mind every night for a whole week straight.

“Ugh, for Christ’s sake, Tetsurou,” Bokuto groans in chorus with Kenma the next night at dinner, “will you go ahead and ask the guy out?”

* * *

“Yachi,” Tsukishima exasperatedly says for the third time, “Yachi, you’re moving too much for the poor guy to handle,” Tsukishima lightly scolds his younger sister as he finally makes her sit still in a chair by his bed. Yachi sighs and unhappily slouches in the visitor’s chair, kicking her feet that couldn’t even touch the floor.

Kuroo chuckles as Tsukishima looks up apologetically at him and the blond says, “Sorry if she was in your way.”

“No, no, it’s alright. I’m just amazed at all the energy your little sister has. My sister kept to herself most of the time and read books when she was at that age.”

“Consider yourself blessed.” Yachi sticks her tongue out at her older brother.

Kuroo laughs as he scribbles down the patient’s blood pressure and replaces the IV bag. He flips Tsukishima’s folder shut. “Well, I’ve got good news for you and Yachi. You should be able to leave Friday afternoon. The doctor said you should come back if you feel worse or notice any symptoms returning, and he’s going to prescribe you medication that you should take twice a day for an entire month. If the medication doesn’t work, you may have to see us again so we can refer you to a specialist. I’ll let you know whether your insurance will cover the medication or not after we call them.”

“I see. Thank you.” Tsukishima says as he smiles in thanks. Kuroo hesitates from leaving the room and awkwardly shuffles his files. “Is there...anything I need to know?”Tsukishima asks hesitantly as he watches Kuroo.

Kuroo looks up flushed. “I uh….,” Kuroo swallows and wipes his sweaty palms on his scrubs, “A-actually, I also was gonna ask you if I would have the honor to take you out to dinner after you are released from the hospital.” Kuroo’s breathing seemed to stop when he realizes how horribly lame he sounded.

“You know,” Dear God, did his voice just crack? “as a celebration for your getting out.” Kuroo rubs the back of his neck and coughs in an attempt to make himself seem less pitiful in front of Tsukishima.          

The way the fifth-grader looks at him as if she could pee her pants from laughing and squealing tells him otherwise.

“Actually, you know what, sorry for putting you on the spot, you can just tell me if you’re available that night or not and I can just go.” At this point, Kuroo is rambling and trying to reach for the doorknob, and Yachi’s mouth is open so wide that Kuroo is prepared to physically stuff himself down a garbage chute.

“Wait!” Kuroo could swear Kei’s cheeks are rosier than usual. “Yes. That actually sounds really nice.”

The overexcited intern has to refrain himself from calling Bokuto and yelling the news to his roommate and beams at a burning scarlet Kei.

He does end up yelling the news at Bokuto. They chest-bump.

“Kei, I told you he likes you!”

* * *

Sometimes, Kuroo sees a pattern of endless seams of gray and white swirls behind his eyelids when he lies in bed at night.  He thinks about the endless routine as he shuffles his feet to class and rides the subway to work, he thinks about the ache in his muscles near the end of his shift and how bright the white tiles sting into his mind, and he thinks about how ‘not enough’ he is. He feels how ‘not enough’ he is when he sees the faceless patients rolling by in his head, and he feels it when Kenma turns and all he sees are his parents and his anxiety wrapped around his body and appointment cards after appointment cards littering the floor around him. He feels it when he see Bokuto all alone, standing over the bathroom’s sink, his mask completely unattended on the floor and he swallows pills from a bottle that helps him keep up his facade. He feels how his bones, his hands, his feet not moving fast enough…

Inadequate.

And then, Kei comes into his mind, and suddenly, Kuroo sees every starlight fizzing around him with a single yellow star standing in the midst of it all. He sees Kei next to him, and they’re standing on a balcony and together they watch the city below inhale and exhale, city lights blinking and winking, and cars blurring below, like lips of a mouth talking too fast for anybody to take the time to listen and hear.

Out of all the past boyfriends and partners Kuroo had ever had, Kei is the most passionate, ambitious person he ever had the honor to be with. He’s much more than what people assume from his appearance;  so much determination hid beneath his awkward bony structure and vigor behind the curtains of dark circles around his eyes. From their first kiss, Kuroo could feel all the stardust with the taste of chocolate chip mint and thought there was so much celestial wonder in Kei that goes unnoticed by passersby.

Even when it’s dark and they’re kissing softly and sensually on his couch, Kuroo can see sunshine in Kei’s half-lidded eyes  and clouds on his lips. In fact, the ebony-haired pre-med student sees so much light and shine in Kei that it slips out of his mouth one day when watching television and Kei’s eyes soften when he hears Kuroo call him ‘sunshine’.

But just as he grows familiar with Tsukishima’s ups, Kuroo grows to be familiar with his downs as well.

There are moments where Kei snaps, and Kuroo grows to know better when to give his boyfriend the space and time alone he needs. There are days when Kei admits he feels empty and aimless; a chipped flower vase with no flowers or water neglected on a counter. There are also days where not a word exchanges between them, and Kei sits in the bus rides home looking at the window, headphones on, and pinching the skin on his palm.

It’s confusing at first. It’s confusing because Kuroo doesn’t know what to do or how to help. He doesn’t give up though and spends his time searching websites that could teach him how to be more helpful when Kei is down.

 

But he likes him for all of that. He doesn’t hesitate to swipe the green button up when Tsukishima calls him in the middle of the night when he’s half-asleep and Bokuto’s snoring is shaking the apartment--despite being in the next room--and Kuroo drains the panic out of Tsukishima’s voice by talking to him about things that calms him. In the more severe panic attacks that happen at night and Kei can’t string a coherent sentence together over the phone, Kuroo doesn’t delay in throwing a hoodie over his pajamas and drive to his boyfriend’s apartment. He sings the Persian songs his grandmother taught him before she died to Kei as he holds him and rocks him back and forth; he hasn’t sung in years and his voice is like a dusty book forgotten away on a shelf, and he’s surprised how the tidbits of Persian his grandmother taught him flows back to the corners of his mind and sweeps away the cobwebs there. But nonetheless, it works in slowing the panic attacks and crying to a hiccup when he sings, so Kuroo looks up more Persian songs to learn and sing.

He doesn’t mind how Tsukishima squeezes his hands when he’s stressed and trying to regain control of his breathing. He doesn’t mind teaching Kei the hand games he learned when he was younger to distract Tsukishima from the overwhelming pressure of school.

He doesn’t mind taking care of Tsukishima and being there when he’s at his worst. His heart skips a beat when he thinks about how much he doesn’t mind, but he pushes it to the back of his head.

When days become weeks and weeks into months, Tsukishima becomes a rhythm as normal as Kuroo’s heartbeat. One day over lunch, he thinks about how natural Kei’s existence is in his life and how natural it is for him to have dinner with Kei’s siblings and Hinata, and Kuroo asks him if he doesn’t mind meeting another two people from his life that he wants to introduce Kei to.

Kuroo feels like vomiting the night Tsukishima agrees to meet Bokuto and Kenma because, well, those two were his family when his own parents couldn’t fill the role, and he’s drowning in his own sweat by all the scenarios that could go horribly, horribly wrong. There’s only ten minutes left before eight o’clock and his boyfriend shows up at the door with his roommate, and his mind is flashing through five different ‘awkward, silent dinner’ situations and and three different scenarios where the food he spent the whole day preparing is going to poison his boyfriend and he will be stuck in a lawsuit.

He snaps out of it when he hears a knock on the door. He’s surprised when the second he opens the door, he’s attacked with a bear hug from not his boyfriend, but an orange-haired ball of energy. He moves out of the way when he hears the instant chorus of greetings. Kenma loops his arm around his Hinata and Bokuto shakes Tsukishima’s arm enthusiastically, and Kuroo smiles so hard his cheeks hurt.  The dinner flows along smoothly, and he feels Kei’s hand warm around  his under the table.

The laughter around the table is sweet to his ears, and Kuroo finally feels complete with all the people he loves sitting in the same room together.

* * *

Eight months pass, and judging by how mushy his stomach has been and his heart on the verge of jumping right out of his chest when Tsukishima does the smallest of things, Kuroo knows he's fallen in love in Kei.

The thought comes to him one night when he's driving and he looks over to the passenger's seat and sees a snoring Kei in sweats, withmessy hair and feet propped on the dashboard. He wants to laugh when he sees Tsukishima's phone still on and still playing the new Tales of Zestiria trailer that Tsukishima has been ranting about the past few months. Kuroo adores the sight of Kei’s messy blonde bird nest-- “Hey, Hinata forgot to wake me up so I was in a rush this morning! And you don’t have the right to make fun of me!” he whines and attempts to cover his hair in embarrassment with his hands when Kuroo teased him earlier today-- and tucks a long, pale strand behind his boyfriend’s ears.

It hits like the slow pouring of sweet-scented tea, and he lets the thought stir on how he might just jumped in a whole other realm past the 'I really like you'. Kuroo sucks in air when he realizes, and the sweet scent pools in his lungs and joins the blood flowing through his veins.  How long has the existence of Kei been streaming through his veins and situating in his mind? What if he was just incredibly late in realizing how much more Kei’s friendship and relationship impacted him than what he initially thought it would?

 

When he stops in front of Kei's apartment, he puts his car into park and turns off the engine and just sits there. He sits, and let's the night breeze blow through the window, and he cracks a grin at the drool sliding down his boyfriend's face.

When he closes the sleeping blonde's phone and shifts him so he doesn't hurt his neck sleeping, another realization falls on him just like how the orange hues of the street lamps tangoes across Tsukishima's skin. He wants to be the one that takes care of Kei when he gets sick and heaving in the toilet at 3 a.m.; he wants to be the one that stays up all night with Kei in a mile long line outside of a game store smack dab in the middle of a freezing December night all for the new Final Fantasy game; he wants to be the one that falls asleep beside Kei as he hogs the bed--not out of curiosity for the intimate passion or emotional electricity--, but so he can feel himself being lulled to sleep in the home he builds in Kei's arms. He wants to be the one that gives Tsukishima Kei the bundle of happiness he deserves in the world, and he wants to be the one that is entrusted with the pulsing gems of Kei's soul and sees the paintings Kei makes with the colors inside of his head.

He stares at Kei, and then Kuroo's parents come into mind. His stomach flips when he remembers the ten o'clock dinners with his dad's seat cold and the angry clatters of the dishes ringing through the kitchen as his mother curses everything her mother-in-law did and gave birth to. Memories of cold dinners and cold seats lead to memories of a humid lake, holding his breath to not breath in the wisps of smoke from his dad's cigarette, his hands itching to slap the insects on his face away, and wondering why his dad took him on his trip in the middle of the night without a word to his mother.  When the recollection of who gets what from the divorce replays like an old cassette, it's the last straw, and he wants to yank the tape out and forget that ever even happened and that it isn't true he still wishes one of his parents would call him every now and then and ask how he's doing. He shakes his head and decides to hold off from telling Kei, and he unbuckles both of their seat belts.

Kei is still snoring when Kuroo lifts him onto his back and fishes out the spare keys Kei gave him from before  as he walks to his apartment. He takes off his sunshine-haired boyfriend's shoes, plugs his phone into the charger by his bed, and tucks Kei in before kissing his forehead goodnight and locking the apartment after him.

That night, Kuroo missed his first chance to tell Tsukishima that he loved him.

It’s two more months until Kuroo’s second chance bubbles to the surface, and he plans a night off from work to take Tsukishima to a fancy restaurant that revolves slowly over the city’s skyline. He makes Kenma pick out his clothes--“how is it that despite you and Bokuto being grown men with adult responsibilities, neither of you two know how to put a decent date outfit?”--, and buys yellow tulips on the way to Tsukishima’s house. He wipes his palms against his pants when he sees the twinkle in his boyfriend’s honey-brown eyes, and the yellow tulips, and Kei's genuine grin, and he feels like he is on their first date again.

Kuroo smiles when he sees Tsukishima’s chest shake with laughter at something Kuroo says, and a memory of a fragile, old book filled with Persian love poetry his grandmother gave him when he was twelve creeps back into Kuroo’s head. He is twelve again and is coughing because of the dust on the pages, and he is trying to understand when he reads about lovers dancing inside of each other’s chest and how lovers never meet, they're in each other all along. It’s too cheesy and confuses Kuroo, but Kei’s voice and his face in the candlelight brings him back to the present, and it clicks.

He takes the blonde man’s hand, and he opens his mouth. “Kei, I want to tell you something important. I--”

“Holy shit, is that man choking?!”

Kuroo turns his head to sees a wheezing, red-faced man doubled over on a table, and he forgets everything he was going to tell Tsukishima. CPR and first-aid training comes naturally to the pre-med student, and he jumps out of his seat. He thrusts his hands into the choking man’s abdomen and is relieved when the man is breathing again and vigorously shaking his hand.

When he gets back home that night he is greeted by a barrage of questions from Bokuto and a homemade icecream sundae made by Kenma, and he facepalms when he remembers. His second chance is messed up like that.

His third chance comes on one lazy Saturday morning in Tsukishima’s apartment when Kuroo walks in and sees Tsukishima is an apron with empty frames and a jar filled with wilted flowers. He watches Kei press the flowers before fitting them into a frame, hands delicately and deftly handling the fragile petals. There’s a comfortable,warm silence that passes between them, and Kei’s eyes flicker up every now and then to meet Kuroo’s.

“You think this is weird, right?” His voice is soft and lofty, as if it was still trying to wake up, and it’s another reason why Kuroo grows to love the mornings. Kuroo shakes his head and instead walks over besides Kei and rolls up his sleeves to help him.

Kuroo is quiet when Kei tells him how he doesn’t get to frame flowers as often as he’d like to, and how Hinata is always excited when he gets to help Tsukishima frame flowers--and always accidentally ruins a few every time. Kei pauses every now and then, but he knows Tetsurou is listening to him, so he continues speaking and fills the space between him with his words. He listens to Kei describe how he washes the dead rose petals and adds them to his tea and cakes, and how when he gets stressed, Hinata fills the bath tub with hot water and roses for his roommate to enjoy. Kuroo sees the glimmer in Tsukishima’s eyes as he talks, and he understands why he kept the dead flowers when he was in the hospital. There was still some use, some importance to them even when everybody think wilted flowers are long dead and useless.

“I know they look withered and most people throw them away when they’re all wilted, but,” Kei holds up a frame in front of him, “there’s still beauty inside, don’t you think?”

Kuroo feels his heart trip and falls smack onto its face when Tsukishima smiles down at the frame, proud at his masterpiece, and he wants to kiss Kei’s cheeks and sing all the poetry he knows into the air for the world to hear. He wants to spend his life right next to the blonde-haired sunshine through all the thunderstorms and mountains and cloudy skies that come their way; he can think of no one other than Tsukishima that he’d want to have a lifelong bond of mutual respect and trust with. He wants to be with Kei, love Kei, sort out arguments with Kei, and share his life with Kei. He knows that the fiery passion of love in their souls will eventually calm down, but it won’t ever burn out in their hearts.

Kuroo leans forward to leave a soft, slow kiss on Tsukishima’s lips. When he breaks away, he can’t think of a better time than now to try telling his boyfriend he loves him, but right when he opens his mouth, Tsukishima’s phone buzzes on the counter and he goes to answer it.

When he hangs up, he tells his boyfriend that it was Akiteru, and he was wondering if Kei could take Yachi to her dentist’s appointment today. Kuroo insists on driving them, swallowing the disappointment and frustration down, and they go to pick up Yachi.

He doesn’t know why, but as he watches Kei fumble with a squirming six-year old and her carseat, Kuroo can’t shake off the twist in his stomach that he lost his last chance to tell him.

* * *

 

It’s nighttime when Kuroo drives Kei and Yachi back home, and he parks on the side a few feet away from a strange black car. He sees an outline of a smoking woman in the car, and Kuroo doesn’t notice the frozen look on Kei’s face.

Tsukishima mutters something incoherent and that he’ll be back in a few minutes, and he takes Yachi and leaves the car.

Kuroo turns off his car after half an hour crawls by, and he wonders what is going on that is taking his boyfriend such a long time. He waits a few more minutes before he begins to open the door, and he sees the outline of a man leaving the house in a fit and getting into the black car in front of him before speeding off.

There’s something that stirs in his gut, and he zips up his jacket as a violent gust of wind blows through the trees. He stops at the stairs when Kei steps outside and closes the front door. He wants to move his mouth but the chilling wind freezes it, and he is stunned to see red eyelids around honey brown eyes, a tear-stained face, and a red imprint of a hand on Kei’s cheeks.

He says Kei’s name but the wind covers up his words, and he doesn’t understand why Kei is staring at the ground and not answering any of his questions. He’s cold and his stomach is twisting like a bottle in the traps of a stormy ocean. He doesn’t understand when Kei pushes him away when he steps closer and wants to brush away the tears on his face, and he feels like the bottle barely able to keep its head over the waves and Kei is the shore, unreachable, untouchable.

Kuroo keeps on begging for Kei to look up, for him to meet his eyes one more time, but his voice dies in the wind. He keeps his eyes down, and Kuroo’s heart cracks right open when Kei finally talks.

“I can’t be with you anymore.”

* * *

Kuroo takes a deep sigh when he reaches Kei's voicemail again, and finally puts his phone down. It has been a week since he last heard of Kei, and he doesn’t have to look into the mirror to know that he is a confused ,crippling mess.

He had already went through the endless text conversations and tried thinking of anything that he may have said or did that was wrong. Nothing clicked, so he had decided to continue to pursue Kei until they could at least talk this out.

He picks up the phone to dial Hinata’s phone number to see if the redhead has had any better luck in getting in contact with the blonde college student.

Deadtone.

His call goes through to Hinata’s voicemail, and he gives up and throws his phone to the side.

He doesn't bother to look up when his coworker looks over from the computer screen. "Still hasn't call you back?"

He lets out a long whistle and leans back in his chair as he runs his hands through his hair. "No. Any advice for a broken-hearted college kid, Saeko?” There’s a cheap, fake smile plastered on his face that his blonde pixie-cut coworker sees straight through with one look.

“C’mon kiddo, don’t give up yet. He probably needed some time to sort out his problems. He’ll come around.” She pauses and has the look that her next thought stuck like peanut butter to the roof of her mouth and can’t scrape it off. Kuroo rubs his eyes.

“I’m tired as hell.”

“I bet you are. You should’ve taken today off, this is the third night shift you’ve taken this week. Don’t you have school too?” Saeko looks over before going back to the computer in front of her.

“School? Who needs school?” The blonde nurse raised an eyebrow at the yawning college student. “Didn’t you hear? I’m going to drop out and sell my organs to support myself. How much can I get for a kidney?”

Saeko snorts and makes a humming noise in her throat. “Go wash your face and see if you can get off your shift an hour early. It’s a slow night.”

Saeko watchs him drag his feet to the bathroom down the hall. She stands up and hears the satisfying ‘pop’ of her joints, and feels that she’s in the mood for coffee since she has another four hours of her shift left to go. She makes a move to leave but pauses when she hears a vibration.

“Oh hey, Tetsurou, someone’s calling you!” The call goes away, and she starts reaching for the phone to read the name when she hears the radio buzz in.

“Saeko, did you say my name?”

“Heads up kid, sounds like we got a suicide case coming in in five.”

She forgets to mention the missed call on Kuroo’s phone as they walk over to the front.

Kuroo swiftly turns his head as he looks over and sees the paramedics speeding in. It's a quiet night with rumbling clouds off into the distance, and it hurts his head at how loud the ambulance sirens drill into his ears. He winces at how blinding the red and white emergency lights are and how fast everything seems to be moving, and he is unable to recognize the body being hauled out of the ambulance. It takes him awhile to register that there was a car pulling up dangerously close to the rear of the ambulance, and he doesn't understand why  he sees Hinata slamming his car door and sprinting towards them.

  
He freezes when he sees a flash of blonde on the stretcher.


	2. it takes time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unlike his grandmother, his mother didn’t feel the urge to pray as rigorously, but as her marriage folded out, he saw her rising from her bed in the middle of the night, curling into a cocoon filled with prayers. He was surrounded by hymns and psalms, but Kuroo never felt spiritual and religious enough to have enough belief to say them.
> 
> Tonight is the first night he is on his knees, praying for someone to hear him.
> 
> Warning!: mentions of suicide and mental illness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys....are all so sweet and amazing, I am so touched by the comments. You guys actually encouraged me to write more (im so slow, i know, school and work is kicking by butt), so please look forward to the future haikyuu stories i'm planning on writing!
> 
> ahhh you all are fabulous, and I hope the second half is as good as the first ;-;

When he sees Kei laid down on the stretcher, he feels everything slowing down and falling apart, and he doesn’t understand how a broken heart could break anymore.

 

He watches Hinata rush in, hyperventilating and shrieking while nurses have to hold him back from following Kei into the emergency room. He sees the redhead's mouth moving, but he can't hear him over the roar of the ambulance, squeaking of carts, and talking of the other nurses.

 

He avoids looking at Kei's face and from noticing how dark the bags underneath his eyes are, and he avoids thinking how often the blonde even bothered to feed himself by the looks of his stomach.

 

His mind is in disarray and seems to be denying everything his eyes saw, but his hands and feet kick into autopilot. His feet and hands don’t seem to move fast enough to plug the oxygen mask in, to set up the machines, hook in the IV bags. He’s moving while trying to do everything,  and his mind feels split in the middle. He doesn’t have enough control over himself to stop the loud clattering he makes. He almost knocks over a tray, and he bumps into his co-worker. He spends nights staying up surrounded by books filled with myriad of medical terms, yet nothing the doctors and nurses say seem to make sense to his ears.

 

He feels inadequate.

 

At some point, the specialists came in and took over, and he doesn't know who pulled him out of the room to 'get some fresh air,buddy'. He feels numb when he changes out of the scrubs with Kei's blood on it, and no matter how much he rubs with soap, he feels his hands and face drenched in Kei's blood. All he sees are red and white, red on a white background, and he’s so fed up with those colors it makes him nauseous.

 

He is barely able to grip onto the edge of the toilet as he throws up.

 

His feet is still on autopilot when he stumbles down to the visiting room, and he sees Yachi asleep in Hinata's lap. For someone who was always abundant in energy and full of words, Hinata looks up with red, blank eyes and he opens up his trembling mouth before shutting it again.

 

"Specialists."

 

He sits silent in the chair besides the redhead, and he shoots a message to Bokuto before dropping his head back. He tries hard not to cry;  if he cried, it would wake Yachi up, who should stay asleep until everything settles out and turns out okay so she doesn’t have to live remembering red when she sees her brother. If he cried, Hinata would have to comfort him and cry again, and Kuroo doesn’t want to be selfish and make Hinata have to worry about another person.

 

He pinches his wrist to distract himself. He keeps his eyes shut, and he keeps on pinching himself until he feels a clammy hand clasps onto his own. He squeezes Hinata’s hand back . They stay that way until he feels a hand shake his shoulder. The light burns, and his eyes focus around Kenma standing in front of him, weary and tired and in baggy clothes just like how Kuroo is.

 

He forgot that he was even here to begin with. He slowly stands up with the careful help of Kenma, bones cracking and muscles stretching. The blonde, cat-eyed boy doesn’t say anything except “Bokuto’s outside”, and he knows better to not do otherwise.

 

He picks up Yachi from Hinata's arm, and he nods at Kenma who places Hinata's head on his shoulder and pulls him into his arms.

 

Kuroo covers Yachi from the light  rain with his jacket, and Bokuto helps him buckle her in the backseat of his car.

 

They stop in front of Kei’s apartment complex, and Bokuto holds Yachi as Kuroo searches for the spare key. He waits outside as Kuroo takes her to her room, tucks her into her bed, and kisses her forehead before turning on the light and leaving.

 

When they are on their way back to the hospital, Bokuto drives slower because of the pouring rain and the fog building up on the screen, and he reaches into the glove compartment to pull out several napkins. Kuroo feels him glancing over at him as he tries to wipe the screen, and Bokuto lets his arm fall when he realized the napkins weren’t going to help. Kuroo distracts himself by watching how the car lights on the opposite side of the road bounce off the windshields and flash against Bokuto’s face.

 

“So Kenma told me what happened.”

 

“About what?” There’s a heavy pause that floats over them in the car, and Kuroo presses his thumb against the foggy window.

 

“I know you like to act nothing happened whenever you try to deal with your problems, but,” Kuroo refuses to meet Bokuto’s eyes, “trust me when I say this is not the situation you want to bottle your thoughts up. It fucks you up and does all sorts of stuff to your head, so…. just….just talk to me.”

 

Kuroo tries swallow the lump forming in his throat, and his lips stays sealed. He tries to focus on the hum of the car and the beats of the raindrops violently hitting against the windows. He sees the windshield wipers sweeping back and forth, and it doesn’t make the vision much better when Bokuto sets it to the highest level.

 

“You know, just how you were here for me when my brother passed away, I want to be here for you. You’re a good person Tetsurou, and--”

 

“A good person? A good person? I’m a piece of shit that can’t do anything right when it matters. Stop messing with me.” Kuroo feels his voice rising, and he clenches his eyes shut to maintain the wall holding himself up.

 

He hates how soft Bokuto’s voice is when he says,“You know that’s not true, when my brother passed away--”

 

Kuroo crumbles.

 

“When your brother killed himself, I was an incompetent piece of shit who was at a complete loss of words on how to comfort you. I should’ve known more, I should’ve told you to tell someone when you first started talking about how differently he was acting, to talk to him, but no, you have to remember coming into his room just to see your  dead brother fucking dangling back and forth from the ceiling fan.”

 

His mind flashes back to freshman year of highschool, and he rubs his eyes so hard to stop the memories from replaying when he had worked so hard to repress them for years. He relives the memories, and instead of being in a car in the middle of a thunderstorm, he’s behind Bokuto at his brother’s funeral, and he feels the heavy rain soaking them both. He hears Bokuto’s mother arguing, yelling over the phone because the priest that promised he would come didn’t show up. The funeral was ‘unorthodox’, and the priest couldn’t bother to say a prayer over a coffin with a dead college kid in it. Bokuto’s dad kept his head down the entire time and his chest was wrecked with silent sobs.

 

Kuroo kept his head down and just paid attention to how heavy the rain was and how his rented suit was soaked, and just kept mouthing the same prayer over and over silently. He stayed beside Bokuto even as the rain worsened and everybody went inside. He clutched onto Bokuto’s dripping hand, and Bokuto continued to gaze at his brother’s headstone with a glassy, hazy look in his eyes.

Kuroo breaks out of his trance, and he presses his palms against his misty eyes.

 

“I was such a shitty friend. It took me so many months to realize you were taking unprescribed medication. You had nightmares every night and cried every week, and you drowned that all out with a couple pills in a bottle. But you needed me, didn’t you? You needed me to make you have a meltdown like this and gush out everything you were feeling. But I was too slow, too late to be there when it counted for you. I don’t even understand why you are still even friends with me.

 

And then it happened again with Kenma. I was too slow to notice all of those pointless therapy appointment cards he had in his room. Went to therapy every day and sat in a crappy chair where some doctor who probably hadn’t even experienced a mental illness before try to figure out what was wrong with him before giving up and prescribing some expensive medicine that made him feel worse. He had been dealing with post traumatic stress disorder from the abuse his parents made him go through. And he still has the guts to call me his best friend even after all the nights when he wasn’t feeling good and I didn’t notice.

 

And look at me acting and crying like a big baby when it’s you and Kenma that went through all of that. Here I am throwing a fit and acting selfish when all the attention should be on Kei right now. But I’m just so angry and fed up with myself, Bokuto; I can’t keep my parents  in the same room as each other before they try to rip each other’s throats out, I couldn’t be the one that you and Kenma depended on when everything went to shit, and I couldn’t even be there to stop Kei, to stop him from...from…”

 

Kuroo falls apart.

 

Boiling anger starts to overflow in him, and he shoves his mouth against his sleeve as he starts to scream and cry. He feels like a little kid who got fed up and realized how unfair everything  is and how there is nothing to do to stop it. He does a pathetic job in trying to cover his mouth, and his moans and wails resonates through the car. His face burns from how fast the tears roll down his face, leaving a scorching path on his cheeks. Kuroo doesn't bother to notice Bokuto pulling onto the side of the road or the click of the seat belts unbuckling.

 

He pounds and punches the dashboard, and the hits get weaker and softer when he feels himself being pulled into Bokuto’s arms. He screams into Bokuto’s chest as the white-haired man rocks him back and forth. He feels disgusting and gross and slobbery and his snot is getting everywhere, but Kuroo is a mess and doesn’t know how to piece himself back together.

 

They stay that way on the side of a highway until all Kuroo has left are shaky breaths and whimpers. Bokuto hands him a tissue, and Kuroo wipes the mess off of his face. They stay silent as minutes pass by, before Kuroo continues in a hoarse, soft voice.

 

“I had no idea that what he was feeling was that horrible, I have no idea what was on his mind . I just want to see him happy, I just want to see you and Kenma happy, because you three are all I got left. I’m being selfish, I know, but I just want to be the one that rips that demonic mental illness from all of your heads. I want to do something that makes you guys not regret keeping me around. But I can’t. It doesn’t work that way, does it? I’m inadequate and...”

 

“For once, I just want to be enough for everyone.”

 

* * *

 

 

There has never been a day where Kuroo prayed. His childhood was filled with him sitting in his grandmother’s lap, resting his head against her chest as she murmured soft ‘bismillah’s and kisses peppered with ‘alhamdullilah’s into his hair. Unlike his grandmother, his mother didn’t feel the urge to pray as rigorously, but as her marriage folded out, he saw her rising from her bed in the middle of the night, curling into a cocoon filled with prayers. He was surrounded by hymns and psalms, but Kuroo never felt spiritual and religious enough to have enough belief to say them.

 

Tonight is the first night he is on his knees, hands clasped together and his head bowed down. His tongue feels heavy with foreign words, and his lips awkwardly fit around words he tries to recall words  from hazy memories. His knees ache from the pressure of his body; his neck throbs from being bent; his ankle twinges from pricks of needles.

 

The agonizing, stinging throb in his chest keeps him rocking back and forth on his knees and whispering pleas.

 

He loses track of the minutes that pass by. He keeps his eyes closed even when he hears the creak of the floor as someone bends down and feels the press of someone’s arm against his. He hears an addition of another voice repeating after him as he continues mumbling and tripping over a few words; the voice is faint and mellow, but he knows it belongs to Kenma.  

 

He opens his eyes after time passed by, and it is a couple of seconds until Kenma does the same. They share in the quietude of the room and listen to the soft snores of Hinata drifting in from Kenma’s room.

 

“My grandmother was spiritual when I was a kid. I only remember some of the prayers because of her.” Kuroo doesn’t understand why he says that, but it makes him focus on his words and ignore the shimmering light pulsing in his mind.

 

“I wish I met her.” Kenma’s voice dies off after that, and they sit together on the floor in slow, endless space of time, the carpet leaving prints into their skin. Their eyes don’t meet when Kenma opens his mouth.

 

“Do you remember when I had that eating disorder freshman year?” Kuroo’s stomach churns at the memory, not responding.  

 

“It was horrible; I couldn’t keep anything down in my stomach, but I told you that it was just a bad stomach flu. I ended up at the hospital, and I felt so empty--physically and mentally. You came to the hospital when I called you and cried, snot running down your face and everything.” Kenma smiled at the memory.

 

“You spent the entire time teaching me card games so I wouldn’t have to think, and when they told you visitor hours were over, you begged and begged the nurses until you drove them mad. You were so stubborn that when they refused, you just camped out in the visitor’s room down the hall.”

 

“You don’t realize all the good things you have done, do you?  You never see yourself as good enough. You hide it by the way you carry yourself, but I know why. You never think of yourself as ‘good’ or ‘useful’ because you couldn’t keep your parents together, and that’s the reason that motivated you into the medical field.”

 

Kuroo clenches his fist, and he doesn’t try to tell him that he’s wrong. Kenma’s words hit the black-haired man right at his chest and cracks him right open with one tap.

 

“I spent money on endless amount of medication and therapists that only made me feel even worse. But, I think being friends with you was the best thing that ever happened to me. You weren’t any chemicals or professional, but having you next to me packing my lunch on days where I didn't have any money and listened whenever I didn’t feel good. I know you keep on calling me and Bokuto your family, but I never tell you how much you mean to me as my family. I don’t even think my parents or siblings care about me as much as you did. You never experienced something like that before, but that didn’t stop you reading books on how to help. You never stopped believing in me that things would get better.” Kuroo swallows when Kenma looks up. “And you were right. I’m horrible at making friends, but look at who I have now. I have you, Bokuto, Hinata, and I like have Tsukishima around too.”

 

“So,” Kenma inhales slowly and pierces Kuroo with his eyes, “why aren’t you by his side right now?”

 

Zephyr. Kenma was the embodiment of  zephyr. A breeze that brought a presence that was a comforting sanctuary with his companionship, never hesitant to accompany Kuroo and push him forward. Speaking quiet words that made people strain their ears but grasp onto the railings as his words shatter. Whereas Bokuto was the torch, Kenma was the compass, quietly wheeling the way Kuroo was suppose to go, patiently awaiting no matter how much he is dropped or his surface is scratched. He’s quick to analyze and to understand, but it takes Kuroo a mountain climb to get to where Kenma is at.  

 

“I’m scared.”

 

“Scared of what?”

 

“Scared that he won’t wake up.” Kuroo presses his palms to his eyes and tries to pay attention of the iridescent stars he sees and not the prickling tears. “I’m scared of facing reality and the possibility that I might lose a friend. I’m scared to spend the rest of my life thinking that I didn’t do enough, didn’t hold him enough.” That I wasn’t enough.

 

“Look at me.

 

“No offense, but I really don’t want to.”

 

“Tetsurou, I said look at me.” Kenma grabs onto his wrists and pries Kuroo’s hands from his face. He sees soft hues of swimming gold, and he has never felt so tired before.

 

“You are enough. You are more than enough, actually. Instead of thinking of what you could have done, why don’t you think of what you can do now? What if he does wake up? What if he wakes up and sees no one there?” Kenma’s soft voice gets Kuroo’s head swirling. “Don’t you want to be there if he does? If you never gave up on me or Bokuto, why are you giving up on him?”

 

It’s a slow click, but Kuroo pushes himself up and strides quickly to his closet. His legs are shaky as if he climbed a mountain, but he rummages through his clothes and tosses them into a plastic bag.

 

“Shit, I can’t believe I needed you to tell me this!” He scrambles through his bathroom for his toothbrush.“I’ll be right by him until he wakes up!”

 

“We’ll be right by him until he wakes up.” Kenma corrected loftily as he stands up and dusts his pants off. “Now hurry up. I think we kept Bokuto waiting in the car long enough.”

 

“You two are coming? Shouldn’t you stay with Hinata right now?”

 

“He’s asleep right now, he’ll meet us at the hospital in the morning. Now hurry it up. We gotta get  to your boyfriend.” Kenma twirls his keys around his fingers, and Kuroo feels the strength from Kenma’s small twinkle of a  smile flowing into him.

 

Kuroo feels blessed to have such wonderful best friends.

 

* * *

 

 

When Kei finally eyes opens, he winces at bright, unfocused white light that blinds him and, he squints until his eyes adjusts.  He feels disconnected and numb; he’s in outer space, separated from the spaceship and floating in a black abyss. It isn’t until he tries to move his arms when he notices the IV wires in his arms and everything pumps back into his head like the liquids flowing into his body.

 

Fatigue seeps into his body like sunlight through window panes. He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand why he failed for the third time in his life; why is he back in a cold hospital bed dreading another bill he will never be able to pay? He wants to close his eyes and fall back into the pillow and act as if he never woke up.

 

Coward, he tells himself, selfish. It's a mantra that is chanted repeatedly over and over in the abyss of his head, crammed with too many  twisting, black demons that look too much like him. He's back at square one, and it suffocates and constricts his chest slowly. He tried so hard, but he's back in the bottom of his pit once again, and he feels like he isn't cut out for life. He doesn't want to go home with failure sewn onto his back and see the timid, tiptoeing looks from his Akiteru. He doesn't want to think about holding his little sister and see her big, glassy eyes peering into his and wondering why his are so empty.  He doesn't want to hear the silence on the other end of the phone, knowing his father is just shaking his head and wondering when is the next hospital bill that is going to roll around. He doesn't want to go back to running and edging around his problems, having to bury it below the surface

 

Kei puts on his glasses and pushes himself up, away from the pillow with the claws of his thoughts. There's one demon in particular that's gripping onto his back, and he doesn't want to think about the reminiscences of warm arms and security he had to throw away. He wants to check the time and act as if he hasn't been counting the days, the hours, the minutes.

 

He swears all the clocks in the room tick to a stop when he sees Kuroo asleep in the chair next to him.

 

Tsukishima sees one too many empty energy drinks neatly stacked in a row beside the sleeping man’s chair and dark bags cluttering under his eyes. He wonders how long he stayed here, and from the looks of the several shirts and jeans stuffed in grocery bag, he could assume it was quite some time.

 

He's speechless. He doesn't understand, he doesn't get it, he doesn't want to comprehend why Tetsurou is asleep in the chair next to him. He doesn't want to drink into the sight of how his limbs sit, or revel in the image of how sturdy and sun blessed his skin and frame is. He refuses to indulge himself at the thought that dark-skinned man had waited for him like how the dock waits for the ship, faithful and patient for the time at end.

 

Kei is not fast enough to shake himself out of his trance, and Kuroo's eyes flutter open. His dark eyes--hues of fertile soil, Kei can't help to remember-- are drifty and laced with fatigue, but he slowly shifts up when his eyes focus.

 

They stay quiet. Kei looks down, because the silence in the room seemed heavier than gravity, pulling them into a realm that Kei had tried so long to avoid. He hates how Kuroo hasn't spoken yet, hasn't spoken the words he expects everyone to say, hasn't spoken and said how much Kei hurt him and that he was selfish to do what he did.

 

Kuroo doesn't say anything. He doesn't do anything except stand up, reach for the cabinets, and pulls out an extra blanket to cover Kei with. His hands are hesitant but delicate, and Kuroo doesn't say anything other than,"I don't want you to get cold."

 

Kei's eyes follow his back as he walks around the room pulling out a water bottle and a book to hand Kei, making idle chatter on 'the hospital should really get better things to entertain the patients with, huh? Maybe some magazines or movies would be nice. . . .'

 

Frustration builds up in Kei's throat because he doesn't understand, and he cuts him off.

 

"Why are you here?"

 

Kuroo stops and spaces out, as if Tsukishima interrupting him threw him off and he doesn’t know where to start. So many words that should have been said the past week but was never uttered and now hung in the space between them, leaving Kei antsy.

 

“Well,” Kuroo finally says after some time, slowly lowering himself back on his seat, “I care about you, I don’t want you to go through this alone--”

 

“Stop. Cut the bullshit.” The way his voice snaps and resonates through the room widens the gap between them.

 

“What makes you think,” Tsukishima’s ears pound at how quiet and soft Kuroo’s voice is,”I could ever lie about how I feel about you?”

 

There’s a deep silence, and the rooms shifts into a still winter morning by the countryside.

 

“You have what it takes to heal.”

 

“No, I don’t.”

 

“Why do you think that?”

 

“How do you know I’ll ever grow out of this? How do you know I won’t be a miserable old man, still having to deal with panic attacks and depression that transforms me into a humiliating mess?” Tsukishima hears how his voice rises and cracks. “I’ve dealt with this for so many years; don’t you think that if I was going to heal, I would have by now?”

 

Another pause. His heart beating against his chest because fuck, the mask he has kept on so long is cracking and there’s nothing he can do to stop the pieces crashing into the floor. He clenches his eyes shut, refusing to see Kuroo witness how he is below the mask he has stuck on so tightly. He feels so alone, lost all contact to earth and now is spiraling in a desolated, freezing chasm.

 

He peeks open when he feels a weight shift next to him on the edge.

 

“I’m not very helpful, aren’t I?” Kuroo mutters, his eyes flickering up to look at Kei’s. “I’ve never experienced mental illness before. I don’t know how it feels to carry that boulder on my shoulder while running up the mountain at the same time. I can’t promise you that it’ll get better, or that it’ll leave.  I can’t be the one that solves your depression. You are the only one that can solve it, nobody else. And you and I both know that.” It takes Kuroo one glance to see despair spreading across Tsukishima’s face before quickly proceeding.

 

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to support you. I’m not going to tell you what you did was selfish. It wasn’t. I don’t want to hear you apologize to anyone. You have no control what your mental illness does to you, just how you can’t help throwing up when you have a stomach virus.”

 

“But I’m so tired, Tetsurou. I’m so tired of everything hurting and always feeling so isolated even in the middle of a crowd.” Another piece falls.

 

“But I’m here. Hinata is here. Bokuto and Kenma are here. You siblings are here. If you feel like they weren’t here before, well, now they’re here for you. From now on, we’re not going to leave you alone and that you have to go through this all by yourself.”

 

Kei is drifting, but when he feels Tetsurou’s hands on his face, the warmth pulls back to ground. He doesn’t try pushing his hands away because his touch, his eyes are gravity that brings Kei back. 

 

“But why? I keep asking you, but you don’t answer me. Why do you care about me even when I don’t care about myself?”

 

“Because I love you.”

 

Tsukishima’s breath hitches in his throat and his ears ring at how overwhelming the emotions in Kuroo’s eyes. Passion of summer wheat pastures, the gentleness and care of spring gardens,the tenderness and secrets that winter brings, and the renewal of autumn’s trees are all bottled in the planet held in Tetsurou’s eyes,  and Kei believes every word he says. Kuroo grimaces and facepalms. “Of all times I decided to tell you this, this is the absolute worst. ” He groans. "But I really do, I mean it. There's so much to you. This sounds so cheesy and typical for someone that doesn't experience mental illness to say, but I mean it. And I know how hard it is to believe it, but I'll keep on telling you how wonderful you are until you believe it."

  
  


“And if we’re going to be in this relationship, I’m going to be there for you without hesitating, just as you would for me. I want to be here for you, every single step of the way. Whether that means you relapse, go through a bunch of medications that don’t work, or try out a bunch of new hobbies and see what make you feel good, I’m gonna be right beside you. We all are right beside you, helping you carry that boulder. ”

 

Tsukishima has cried a lot in the past years. He has cried prickling tears that stick pins on every inch of skin it crawls over, hot tears of burning frustration and hatred on why he couldn’t do anything right, cold tears as he sits on the floor of a cold shower. The only thing that has ever been consistent is that he cried in places where he knew nobody would see; only in places where he could pull off his mask and the skin that came with it and nobody would have to witness the monstrosity he sees himself as how he actually is.

 

He has never cried tears in front of someone, and he has never felt so loved before in his life.

 

“Do you,” Tsukishima swallows as Kuroo chuckles as wipes the tears away, “do you really think I got what it takes?”

 

“No,” There’s a slow, small press of lips to Kei’s forehead and he lets himself to be pulled into Kuroo’s chest.“I know you got what it takes to heal.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this part wasn't horrible... a lot of the stuff i wrote near the end was a lot of the struggles i have dealing with my mental illness so i sort of projected myself on tsukishima, eheh
> 
> i was thinking about posting a future part where they are both happy and have a kid but....i was worried it would be too cheesy so i didn't otl... i might reconsider if enough people encourage me to do it
> 
> i also might post some snippets of the future idea stories of kurotsuki i have in mind on tumblr //hint hint, it's gonna be fantasy and have to do with a beauty and a beast

**Author's Note:**

> This idea started off as something for me to release everything that was going on in my life on paper a year ago, so a lot of things in this are very personal to me. I hope this is something you can enjoy and relate to! Recovery is a long path.
> 
> feedback is appreciated (and might just get out the second part faster)! come find me on tumblr at hiraethghost! c:
> 
> huge thanks to shannon for being the world's best beta! you can find this queen @ haikiuyu on tumblr; go talk to shan and tell her how much of a babe she is


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